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Shocker! Cam Christie First-Rounder…to Timberwolves?

Posted on June 19, 2024June 19, 2024 by David Shama

When Golden Gophers freshman guard Cam Christie, who averaged 11.3 points per game last season, announced this spring he was exploring interest in being drafted by the NBA, Minnesota fans proclaimed this a too soon endeavor. The opinion from this keyboard was the smooth shooting 6-foot-5 Christie could be worthy of a second-round selection in the June 26 and 27 NBA Draft, and it was logical to declare his interest in turning pro.

Now the breaking news: Mock drafts this from FanSided and The Athletic have the NBA champion Celtics taking the 18-year-old on the 30^th and last pick of the first round. Yahoo can top that, predicting he will be selected by the Timberwolves with their No. 27 spot in the first round.

“That wouldn’t surprise me,” a former Big Ten coach told Sports Headliners. “He’s a good offensive player.”

Christie was second on the team in scoring to Dawson Garcia’s 17.6 points per game. Christie made .403 percent of his field goals, .393 of three pointers while playing in 33 games and being named to the All-Big Ten Freshman team.

As Christie has advanced through the pre-draft evaluation process, he has been a fast riser among prospects. “He’s a scoring threat and a guy that’s going to get better,” the authority quoted above said, not wanting his name published.

At less than 200 pounds, Christie needs to add muscle as he matures and that will help him defensively where he has the overall athleticism to defend successfully. But it’s his height, fluid shooting stroke, shot making skill at various distances and ability to drive to the basket that present an intriguing offensive package.

Given his youth and inexperience, Christie at best might play five or 10 minutes per game as a rookie. “He is not going to set the league on fire,” the source said.

Karl-Anthony Towns photo courtesy of Minnesota Timberwolves.

That authority believes the Wolves need to help themselves in the offseason with additional scoring. He pointed out that when adequate production wasn’t there from Anthony Edwards, Karl-Anthony Towns and Jaden McDaniels, the Wolves often had scoring problems. A bad offensive night from Towns, the team’s second leading scorer after Edwards, was particularly troublesome.

Management will have to figure out in the offseason how to produce more consistent offense, whether that comes from development of players on the current roster, acquisition of experienced scorers or via the draft.

Another obvious need is point-guard where starter Mike Conley is 36 years old. He played at a high level in the 2023-2024 breakthrough season for the Wolves but fewer minutes and susceptibility to injuries hangs over the future.

The Wolves, if they want to prioritize point guard in the first round, could target Marquette senior All-American Tyler Kolek. No guarantee he will be available at No. 27, but the 6-foot-1, 197-pound Rhode Island native is not projected to be a top 15 to 18 pick. He brings Conley-like qualities to the NBA including decision making, poise and pick and roll efficiency. He’s unselfish, tough and can make shots and passes under physical and mental duress.

The Wolves have the No. 37 selection in the second round and could further address their guard-wing needs as discussed with Christie and Kolek. A surprise availability for Minnesota might be uber-athletic scorer Terrence Shannon from Illinois. The 6-6, 219-pound Shannon can shoot outside, is a terrific slasher and has all the skills to be superb defensively. His off-court legal problems have been cleared up but would suspicious teams back off his first-round talent and let him slide into the second round?

That’s a long shot of Shannon being available at No.37. But raise your hand if you saw Christie being projected days before the draft as a first rounder?

Worth Noting

The Twins, 41-32 and 4.5 games behind the Guardians, have won eight of their last 10 games. Minnesota has a 39.6 percent chance of winning the AL Central and 78.7 percent likelihood of making the playoffs, per FanGraphs.

With Twins supporters still annoyed about the club not spending money last season to retain pitching ace Sonny Gray, ownership could juice positive feelings with ticket buyers if they acquire a solid pitcher or position player prior to the July 30 trade deadline.

Baseball’s better teams? Minnesota is a combined 1-16 against the Dodgers, Guardians, Orioles and Yankees. The lone victory coming over the Dodgers.

Twins great Joe Mauer will be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum July 21 in Cooperstown, New York but sadly neither of the two men who taught him so much about baseball while growing up in St. Paul will be present. Grandpa Jake Mauer died in 2020, while Mauer’s dad, Jake Jr., passed in 2023.

It won’t surprise authorities familiar with corporate sponsorships if hometown Target doesn’t renew naming rights deals with Target Center and Target Field when they expire. Priorities and cultures change over the years.

Before the Twins’ baseball stadium was named, this writer’s idea was: Wheaties Field.

Athlon Sports College Football magazine, an early arrival on newsstands, names Golden Gophers senior tackle Aireontae Ersery to its second team All-American offense. Phil Steele publications has the 6-6, 325 pound Ersery on its All-American third team.

Ersery, who Athlon lists on its All-Big Ten first team, started all 13 games for Minnesota in his junior season. The AP named him first team All-Big Ten.

Gopher kicker Dragan Kesich, who is on the Phil Steele All-American fourth team, is first team All-Big for Athlon. The magazine, which rates the Minnesota offensive line the fourth best in the Big Ten, ranks the Gophers No. 55 in the nation, predicts they will finish 12^th in the Big Ten and projects a Guaranteed Rate Bowl matchup in Phoenix against Texas Tech.

Hazeltine National Golf Club, which hosts the U.S. Amateur August 12-18, has fulfilled the vision of more than 60 years ago that club founder Totton Heffelfinger and his colleagues had to bring the biggest of golf events to this area. Hazeltine has hosted every premier tournament of the PGA and USGA. It’s the only facility in the country to twice host the Ryder Cup (2016 and 2029).

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Expanded Playoff Breath of Fresh Air for Gopher Football

Posted on June 17, 2024June 17, 2024 by David Shama

The University of Minnesota football team hasn’t won’t a Big Ten championship since 1967 and that’s not likely to change in the foreseeable future with the conference adding premier programs from the west coast to join dominant schools in place for decades like Michigan and Ohio State.

But there is a development that realistically could sooner or later juice the Golden Gophers program—the expanded college football playoff starting in 2024. The expansion from four to 12 playoff teams should put a smile on the face of every loyal Gopher fan. Now this program can potentially be nationally relevant without winning the league title.

“P.J. and I are very excited with the 12-game expansion,” athletic director Mark Coyle told Sports Headliners.

Head coach P.J. Fleck’s 2019 team went 11-2 including an Outback Bowl win over Auburn. That group finished tied for first in the Big Ten West Division standings. Minnesota was ranked No. 10 in the country by two polls following its bowl win.

That 2019 outfit exemplifies a Gopher team worthy of being invited to participate in a 12-team playoff. As a member of the Big Ten, the Gophers belong to a conference exceeded in prestige and reputation only by the SEC. Talk this spring is those two leagues could annually have four or even five teams each in forthcoming playoffs.

Athlon Sports College Football magazine, now on newsstands, offers a projected playoff bracket for 2024-2025 that has Michigan, Ohio State, Oregon and Penn State from the Big Ten, with Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi and Texas from the SEC. The forecast is for a national title game between Georgia and Ohio State with the Bulldogs winning.

The College Football Playoff Selection Committee will evaluate teams including by their schedules. The SEC has an edge with its teams playing eight league games, while Big Ten programs play nine.

That difference gives Coyle pause when a visitor asks about Big Ten teams one day playing 10 conference opponents each year. The change would be appealing to fans and TV viewers, but Coyle said such a development becomes “tricky” in that an extra league game adds another loss for half the schools. “…You’ve got to win all of them (the full schedule) if you want to have a special year,” Coyle said during an interview in his campus office.

The Big Ten adds Oregon, UCLA, USC and Washington this year, creating an 18-team league. The SEC expands to 16 teams with the addition of Oklahoma and Texas. Coyle said it’s going to require a couple of years to see how the committee evaluates the teams in the two conferences including wins, losses and strength of schedules.

The Gophers have a mix in quality of nonconference opponents through 2032 with college football kingpin Alabama at one extreme and Lindenwood, a program that became Division I last year, at the other. Other diverse future opponents include California, Mississippi State, North Carolina, North Dakota, Northwestern State and Rhode Island.

Coyle said Fleck is open to scheduling any school. “He never freaks out,” Coyle said about Fleck who has been leading Minnesota since 2017 and has a career third best Gopher winning percentage of .595 (among football coaches with 45 games or more).

What Fleck’s teams do on the field is critical to revenues for the self-supporting athletic department with 21 sports. The Gopher revenue streams from football, men’s basketball and men’s hockey include those they control directly such as ticket sales and fundraising. A jackpot is Minnesota’s share of TV and other revenue that comes from the Big Ten office, with USA Today reporting that in 2023 and 2024 a full league member received about $60 million.

Tony Petitti, who became Big Ten commissioner in 2023, has a career background in the business side of TV and Coyle raves about him. “He makes it clear that football is 90 percent of the revenue in the Big Ten Conference. The same thing with the SEC.”

Worth Noting

Coyle talking about men’s hockey coach Bob Motzko who took the Gophers to consecutive Final Fours in 2022 and 2023 after being hired in 2018: “The crowds are back. 3M Arena is hopping again.”

Bobby Bell, the greatest Golden Gophers football player I ever saw, turned 84 today. Bell was a two-time All-American tackle, Outland Award winner and Big Ten Conference MVP while leading the Gophers to a 22-6-1 record from 1960-1962.

Michael Hsu, the former University of Minnesota agent, has long been an advocate for treating college athletes as employees. He looks more like a prophet all the time.

It appears as soon as 2025 college football players will be sharing in revenues at their schools. Last month the NCAA and Power Five conferences settled a pending lawsuit by allowing schools to directly pay its athletes in the future. Already in place is the practice of Name, Image and Likeness money that has lined the pockets of athletes from coast to coast.

Hsu, who told Sports Headliners he doesn’t receive compensation or expect it in the future for his advocacy on behalf of college athletes as employees, has been supportive of several litigations that challenged the old amateur college sports model. Defendants included the NCAA, Ivy League and Notre Dame.

“They (the lawsuits) basically say that college athletes are being misclassified as student athletes by these organizations,” Hsu said.

What’s down the road could be classification of athletes from revenue generating sports as employees by their schools. That, of course, includes Minnesota who by next year maybe sharing about $20 million in athletic department revenue. Hsu said schools don’t want athletes to be employees because as such that will entitle them to various rights and protections including health insurance.

Hsu, who lives in the Twin Cities area and is a Gopher fan, co-founded the College Basketball Players Association. That entity is dedicated to current, future and past college players and advocates for their rights including “health, safety and welfare,” per the CBPA website.

The Lynx, winners of three straight and having a 10-3 record, remain No. 2 in The Athletic’s latest WNBA power rankings. The Liberty, 12-2, is still No. 1 in the 12-team league.

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Improving U Pass Offense? Unknowns Still Lingering

Posted on May 20, 2024May 20, 2024 by David Shama

Spring practice has come and gone for the Golden Gophers football team and while there is reason for cautious optimism about the upcoming 12-game 2024 season, no personnel unit on offense and defense seems so uncertain as the roster of receivers.

Not since 2019 has Minnesota had an elite passing offense. Ryan Burns pointed out on his GopherIllustrated Website last week that “Minnesota hasn’t ranked nationally higher than 122^nd in pass attempts in the last three seasons, which is how the Gophers averaged a putrid 143 passing yards a game last year.”

Part of the blame was deservedly targeted last season at quarterback Athan Kaliakmanis who is now the presumed starter at Rutgers next fall. But Gophers receivers had their issues, too, including with route running and dropped passes. In 2024 Minnesota returns second team All-Big Ten receiver Daniel Jackson but that’s not enough to clear the murky outlook for the receiver room.

In an interview with Sports Headliners, Burns was asked if the receiver roster and production could be good in 2024. “I don’t think they’re going to have a really good room. I have a lot of questions about that room,” said Burns who has an extensive fan following because of his recruiting knowledge and analysis of the Gopher football program.

Jackson was third in the Big Ten in receiving yards with 831 yards and also in touchdowns for pass catchers with eight. “There’s just so much ambiguity behind Daniel Jackson I really don’t know what to expect,” Burns said. “I think it (the room) has the potential to be better than it has been the last few years, but I would say the bar for that isn’t exactly high considering the inconsistencies we’ve seen at receiver. …”

Burns made his point while talking about specific receivers including Eiljah Spencer, a promising transfer from Charlotte a year ago, who caught only nine passes for the Gophers in 2023 while starting five games. Spencer has struggled with dropped balls but is a potential starter along with Jackson and Lemeke Brockington who has considerable potential but missed most of last season with an injury.

Kenric Lanier is a former four-star recruit going into his 2024 redshirt freshman season after playing in just one game last season. His talent reputation is intriguing as is Georgia transfer Tyler Williams, a redshirt freshman who coming out of high school was considered among the elite prep receivers in the country.

Burns looks at Williams and talks about the Gophers polishing “his clay,” noting he believes the Florida native has different skills “than anything in that receiver room.” Williams played in two games for Georgia last season before deciding to enter the transfer portal, perhaps because of an ankle injury in the spring and prospects of not receiving as much playing time next fall as desired, per Burns.

Raising hopes about an improved passing game is the addition of Minnesota’s FCS transfer quarterback from New Hampshire. “With Max Brosmer, I think a lot of the national media is sleeping on Max Brosmer,” Ryan said about the graduate student who recently was included on the Senior Bowl watch list for quarterbacks.

In seven seasons at Minnesota head coach P.J. Fleck has only once had a quarterback throw for more than 15 touchdown passes, Burns said. In 2019 Tanner Morgan threw 30 when he had All-Big Ten receivers Tyler Johnson and Rashod Bateman.

Burns is hoping for a “souped up Tanner Morgan” in Brosmer who was second team FCS All-American at New Hampshire last year. “Where you can be accurate, where you can be able to put the ball out on time, give your playmakers a chance to make a play, and just do that consistently. What that does for this Minnesota offense (in improvement).”

Brosmer is expected to throw more accurately than Kaliakmanis including on intermediate passes. He is also one of at least 14 anticipated new starting quarterbacks in the new 18-member Big Ten. Most of the league will be figuring out how their quarterbacks will settle in next fall, with Burns predicting if Brosmer can total 20 touchdown passes and be “under double digits in turnovers,” that will go a long way in Minnesota improving on last season’s 6-7 record including 3-6 in the Big Ten.

The anemic Minnesota passing offense produced just 16 touchdown passes in 13 games while accumulating 1,884 yards. The rush offense, usually the program’s bread and butter, was challenged by running back injuries and didn’t provide a lot more production with 2048 yards and 13 touchdowns. But the running game should be rolling in 2024 with lead back Darius Taylor and a refortified roster of quality backups for Taylor who made All-Big Ten honorable mention as a freshman.

Burns thinks the floor on next season’s record is 4-8, with the ceiling 9-3. The performances of all players and coaches, of course, will all impact outcomes and so will injuries. But Burns emphasizes (as was seen last season) without “consistent quarterback” play it’s difficult to win games.

What if Brosmer plays poorly, or is injured? Well, that’s where things become more dicey. In the spring the Gophers added Virginia Tech quarterback Dylan Wittke. He redshirted last season and didn’t see game action. He didn’t arrive here until late April so it’s difficult to assess Wittke, who was an athletic player coming out of high school in Georgia.

With more experience right now in the Gopher system than Wittke is true freshman Drake Lindsey. “Minnesota is incredibly, incredibly high on that young man after being able to work with him here this spring,” Burns said.

Lindsey, an Arkansas native, comes from a family of Razorback fans. There’s an impression here and down in Hog country the Razorbacks didn’t push hard enough to recruit the hometown quarterback. Any last minute recruiting rush, Burns said, was apparently negated by all the work and time Fleck and co-offensive coordinator Greg Harbaugh Jr. had already invested on the three-star quarterback.

This spring Burns saw why Lindsey was a recruiting priority. “Drake Lindsay just looked different to me than other true freshman quarterbacks I’ve seen. He was very poised. Nothing really flustered him. Now (it’s true) he was drinking through a fire hose (learning so much). He’d make a great play one time; then the next time would not make a great play but I think his poise DNA ability to make plays is something that excites me.”

That’s good to hear because as recent history shows, the Gophers need help in a lot of places to raise the production of their passing offense.

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